Cities are sinking around the worlds. Because subterranean water reserve is being pumped out in vast quantities. Bangkok, Mexico City are the prime example of this phenomena, but other cities will follow.

Well, Venice is the famous one for sinking, but I think Victoria B.C. is also slipping very slowly under the waves. It's on a continental plate that is vanishing under the main continent's plate. One day the earthquake will come and Victoria will vanish like Atlantis.

How is this a personal concern? Are you a city planner?

Arf!

Nicely done.

Whenever stuff like this comes up, as bad of me as it is, I find myself completely unable to care. I mean, by the time the sea levels have risen and cities have supposedly 'sunk' I'll be long gone, pushing up the daises.

Call me a fool if you will, but that's just the way I see it.

The world can be saved if only Cities could be saved...caused they are the hub of civilization (Civi ...Haha) now....

Humanity will build other cities elsewhere. No one presently lives in Hatra, trading hub of Mesopotamia (2000 years ago) and jewel in her crown, and yet trade still continues. Troy was rebuilt at least three times.

Knowledge is perhaps the key to civilization. Cities are just a convenient place to gather knowledge and learned people into one place.

Actually cities may be a thing of the past if enough people link over a virtual network. Imagine a peaceful cabin by the lake, nearest neighbor 10 kilometers away, where you log in to work every day and keep civilization alive.

Saw the new Pentagon Report?

(Guardian )

Most European cities will sink and dissapear and swallowed by sea and Britain will have "Siberian Climate" by 2020 ??]

Bushes Personal advisers wrote it....

The Observer (U.K.), Feb. 22, 2004

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

Well then, it _must_ be true!!

I personally love how GW refuses to acknowledge global warming, and then his advisors put out something saying that an ice age will strike the UK and europe will sink in fifteen years... That really just sums up our government at this point...

Bush is not really bad...Only dyslexic and under-fledged in brain department…happens to sons of many a big papa….

Coming from the advisors of a man who can't even say "nuclear" properly, (among mutiple other acts of idiocy) I find this very hard to take seriously. Cities are sinking gradually, but it won't happen for a long time. People have been predicting something like that for millenia, but the world recovers. One crazy guy writes a book about the world ending soon every few years. He keeps writing new ones because it hasn't happened yet, and isn't likely to heppen anytime soon.
An ice age hitting the UK in the next 15-20 years is about as likely as penguins taking over the world whilst wielding kazoos, and should be taken just as seriously. Our government is really stupid right now, and it needs a change. I would holding my breath until the 2008 election, but I'm too worried about Hillary. If she becomes president *shudders* too horrible to contemplate.

The Man may be idiot...but are his advisers idiots or verbally challenged?? ...No they have a certain low animal cunning unmatched in recent history...Besides, the report was supposed to be "Inhouse",honest and brutally frank...

I do not think Pentagon Honchos were trying to scare their not very bright Chief

[EDIT by Jonman - watch your language please]

Moved to Issues....

Vague flashbacks to an Asimov book I can't remember the name of. In the book the people who live like that are really messed up in their ideas and for plausible reasons.

A few more years and George Bush will be gone and the next guy will probably get the blame (and the responsibility for fixing) most of the problems Bush has caused. Does anyone else see the problem with that system?

You're thinking of a book in his robot series. I can't remember the name of it either. You're right though. Because the people never saw one another they were extremely antisocial and xenophobic. Reproduction was a very big trial in a person's life. They lived alone surrounded by robots and really couldn't cope with even one other person near them.

I'd like to think you'd have the neighbor over for a BBQ once in a while, at the theoretical cabin, and still see people at the local market.
/spam

You guys are talking about The Robots of Dawn. Great book by a brilliant author. Too bad he's gone, though....

/spam

My neighborhood is believed to be sinking. It was built on filled up swampland. A lot of New York City is like that actually. People were sort of panicking at one time. They believed it would sink completely in twenty years.

*Points to New Orleans*

These things will happen. It's best to take some action rather than deal with the consequences.

A city below sea level. Next to a major river. Tides kept back by simple levees. In an area famed for hurricanes. This was predicted for years, and disaster finally struck.

And this isn't a worst case scenario. If climate change really does turn out to be a big problem then the loss of life will be decimating. Not only that, it would require a significant change in our ways of life and land usage policies.

There isn't a hurricane thread that I can find, so here I'll place my best wishes for those affected by this tradegy. I seem to be saying that far too much recently.

Sinking City More Vulnerable To Hurricanes

Local expert says levees are not enough to protect New Orleans, which is sinking due to rising sea levels

BOISE - A Boise State University professor says New Orleans's unique location makes it especially susceptible to hurricanes.Dr. Todd Shallat has written numerous books about rivers and New Orleans, which he and other experts on the subject have argued will eventually become an island or sink due to a number of factors, including rising sea levels.

"(Louisiana) loses about an acre of land every 15 to 20 minutes," he said. To put things in perspective, he says a chunk of land the size of Manhattan sinks in Louisiana every ten years.

Shallat says the city has long been protected from the waters of the Mississippi River and other estuaries by its own Great Wall.

"New Orleans is like a city in an earthen bathtub. It's surrounded on all sides by levees and flood walls," he said.

Two of the levees were breached during the hurricane, allowing water to seep into the city and settle.